


The Exception

by GrenadeFestival



Category: Darker Than Black, Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Crossover, Gen, One Shot, help I don't know how to tag tropes that don't involve shipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-24 22:44:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17713073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrenadeFestival/pseuds/GrenadeFestival
Summary: Mankind can not gain anything without first giving something in return. This is the universe's most immutable law. Though the alchemists of old have faded from history, replaced by passive recipients of power known as contractors, the world still works within the boundaries of equivalent exchange.Many men have tried to defy this law.All have failed.But when you are desperate to bring back things lost, it is easy to believe you may be the one exception.You will not be, and when you fail, Truth will be there to laugh at your expense.





	The Exception

**Author's Note:**

> A while ago a friend and I did a terrible thought experiment: How many anime can we cram into one universe while still maintaining a some semblance of continuity within the rules of the universe? What we made was a terrible homunculus of fandom that may never see the light of day, but one idea from it did stick with me. What if contractors' powers were just watered down forms of circle-less alchemy, and their contracts were the universe's way of making them satisfy Equivalent Exchange? And if this were the case, how did Hei get away with having a contractor's abilities, but no contract? My answer? He didn't.

“Now this is interesting.”  
  
The voice is almost lost in the emptiness around him. Hei can still smell the wet earth outside and the mustiness of chalk and dust, feel the grooves of the rotting wooden floor pressing into his fingers, hear the deafening crackle of electricity around him. He can feel the warmth of the humid rainforest air clinging to his skin, and the ache in his hand where he drew his own blood for this ritual. He feels a jolt of panic as all those sensations disappear in an instant, leaving behind only faint echoes. The room around him disappears, becoming a fading impression against a backdrop of blinding white light. The dissonance sends a shock through his body and he freezes. The fuzzy, blank figure in front of him doesn’t seem to care.

“I thought the world had found other ways to play god, but I suppose there’s no substitute for the classics,” the figure continues.

Something clicks in his mind. His body catches up to the jarring change in scenery, and his nerves finally stop humming. The throbbing in his hand returns as well, the pain from the cut anchoring him back in reality.

_Breathe. You’re not dead._

He looks around at the bleak space until his eyes land on the monolith behind him. A huge stone door, covered in symbols he doesn’t recognize, almost hovering in place, frozen in the air. He looks back at the figure, standing a few paces away with their hands resting carelessly on their hips.

“Hello Hei,” the figure says, “I would call you by your real name, but that person doesn’t exist anymore, does he? You’ve buried him so deep, I don’t think even you remember what it feels like to be yourself.”

“Who are you?” Hei asks.

The figure is silent for a moment, but the energy around it seems to shift. If it had a mouth, Hei swears it would be smiling. Ice shoots up his spine.

“I have many names,” they say, “I am the world. I am the universe. I am god. I am truth. I am all. I am one, and I am also you.”

“Where’s Bai?”

The figure crosses their arms and cocks their head.

“Did that silly book not tell you? Or perhaps you just didn’t want to listen. You wanted to believe you could accomplish what generations of alchemists couldn’t. You, a boy alone in the jungle who’d never even drawn a transmutation circle before today.”

He grits his teeth and curls his hands into fists, struggling to find something to say. Something to spit in this smug bastard’s face. Something to prove them wrong. But the words don’t come.

“Shut up,” he hisses.

“What’s the matter? You already know the truth. You know this is a fool’s errand. You know this will never give you want you want, so why did you try it in the first place?”

He takes a shaky breath as his eyes begin to burn.

“I just want to see my sister again,” he whispers, “Please, I have nothing left to lose.”

“No, you want more than that. You want her back by your side, safe and alive, away from Heaven’s Gate. If you could, you would turn back time so neither of you were ever in danger to begin with, back to before you came here. Before you met Amber. Before Bai became a contractor. Before she met me,” they say.

“Wait, before she met you? What does that mean?”

“Have you ever wondered where contractors come from?”

“The gates created them.”

“Yes, and what do you think the gates are? Hm?”

He doesn’t reply.

“You don’t know,” the figure says, “Then take a good look around, because as we speak you’re inside them.”  
  
His eyes widen and his heart starts pounding. He takes a half step back.

“I...we’re inside Heaven’s Gate?” he asks.

“Not just Heaven’s Gate. Hell’s Gate too. There are not two gates, Hei. There is only one, cutting through the very fabric of the world. In the past, only alchemists who paid the right toll could see the Gate, but now the world has changed, and the power of alchemy bleeds out into all of time and space. It created the artificial sky that hides the stars, it warps the world around the gates, and of course it created what you call contractors.”

“How?”

“It would take too long to explain, so how about I show you instead?”

Behind him, the great stone door shudders. A smile splits across the figure’s featureless face. Hei takes another step back, clenching his injured hand, not caring how the wound burns in protest. Something soft and shifting touches his legs, then his arms. Black flickers in the corners of his vision. He doesn’t have time to turn around before he’s yanked backwards into the yawning darkness.

* * *

 

“Wait! Let me go back!”

His head is pounding. The light stings his eyes, and sweat runs down his back, but he’s never felt so awake. Image after image flashes through his head, memories and sensations and sounds and smells from all different places, the cold, heavy scent of rain in the mountains, the give of mud under his boots, the sound of Bai humming a tune he doesn’t quite recognize, the metallic taste of blood. And beyond it all, something else. Deep and luminous. Something absolute.

_She was there. Bai..._

“I can’t,” the figure says, “That is all your toll will cover.”

There is no more cockiness in their voice. They stand still, arms at their sides. Hei takes a deep breath and digs his fingernails into his palms, forcing himself to let go of every desperate sentence that shoots through his mind. There will be no negotiating. That much is clear.

“What toll?” he asks, “I satisfied the Law of Equivalent Exchange-.”

The figure cackles.

“For any old human body, perhaps,” they laugh.

His face falls. The figure smiles again.

“Don’t worry,” they say, “I won’t take anything you’ll notice.”

Hei tenses as the figure raises their hand, bracing himself. He curls his hands into fists, wondering if there is any maneuver in the whole world that could get him out of this. He stops immediately when he notices the ash.

Small, flaky particles rise up and out of his skin, sparking with dull electricity before disappearing. The particles reappear in a lazy cloud around the featureless figure, quickly being absorbed as soon as they emerge from the air. Hei’s stomach churns. His skin tingles. The smile never disappears from the figure’s face.

“There, now that seems like a fair trade. Wouldn’t you agree, contractor?”

The figure laughs. The room goes dark.

* * *

 

The tiny shack is filled with smoke. It drifts around him, hanging low to the ground like a lumbering beast and stalking through the corners of the filthy old room. He can feel the wood of the floorboards pressing into his cheek and smell the sharp tang of blood and charred flesh, but he can’t bring himself to move. His whole body feels numb and heavy. It’s as if he’s part of the smoke, barely a human being.

He flicks his eyes towards the center of the huge transmutation circle, but as soon as his eyes land on the hazy mound of blackened flesh, he looks away. He squeezes his eyes shut and crushes his palms against his brow. The air in the shack is thick and warm, but he can’t stop shivering.

_What am I supposed to do now?_

* * *

 

The sky has turned from black to a dark ashy blue by the time he leaves the shack and hikes back out into the jungle. He hopes there’s enough supplies in his pack to get him to the next town. He didn’t bother to check. He was too focused on getting as far away from the cabin as possible. He holds one of his knives as he ducks through the thick underbrush, retracing his steps back to the old hunting trail that lead him here. The words of the strange figure turn over in his mind, mocking him with no end in sight, but it’s better than thinking about his sister. About the mess in the shack. About what he put her though for no reason at all, and after she’d already been through so much…

_Stop it._

The light, weedy smell of water reaches him as he travels down into a shallow valley. A break in the trees reveals a small lake just below him, the reflection of the fading stars dancing across its surface. He stops when he reaches it and sits down on a mossy stone near the edge. He takes a deep breath and looks down at his injured hand. Blood is smeared across his palm, but the cut there has scabbed over. He no longer feels the throbbing pain from earlier, which he’s grateful for. He curls his hand into a fist.

_“Wouldn’t you agree, contractor?”_

The figure’s jovial voice echoes through his mind again. Contractor. The thought makes his heart pound. Contractor. The word feels like a swear or an accusation. It repeats in his mind until it feels hollow and meaningless. Was it just a taunt?

He looks at the knife still clutched in his other hand, at the two prongs that make up the blade. How did Bai use her powers? Did she have to think about it? Or was it like flexing a muscle? Unconscious and effortless. He grips the handle tighter and concentrates on the metal.

_This is ridiculous. If it did make me into a contractor, there’s nothing saying my ability will be the same as Bai’s. Or even if it meant ‘contractor’ literally._

A tiny arc of electricity jumps between the prongs of the blade.

A wave of nausea rolls through him.

* * *

 

He finds a dirt road and walks inside the deep ruts left by years and years of vehicles passing through. As the stars shift away towards the horizon, more of the jungle gives way to hazy daylight, and soon he can see clearly the path he’s on. He isn’t sure if he’s going the right direction, but at this point he’s not sure it matters. Life and death feel like meaningless words to him. Meaningless places.

He doesn’t hear the jeep until it’s right behind him.

“Hei! Oh my god, Hei, is that you?!”

He turns around. The jeep shudders to a halt, and a Brazilian woman, her long hair tied up in a ponytail, jumps out and runs towards him. From the driver’s seat a Japanese man watches him with a mixture of shock and apprehension.

“Holy shit are you ok?!” the woman asks, “We thought everyone who went into the Gate died! Are there others with you? Where’s Amber? And Bai?”

“You haven’t seen Amber?”

“No, not for days.”

He sets his mouth into a grim line.

“Well she’s alive,” he says, “I saw her before she ran away.”

“Ran away? What do you mean? Hei, what the hell happened to you?”

He sighs and presses his palm against his brow, his shoulders sagging.

“Tell you later,” he says.

She sighs, obviously not satisfied with that answer, but unwilling to push him. As he drops his hand back to his side, her eyes widen.

“Oh my god, you’re bleeding,” she says.

“Huh?”

He touches his fingertips to his brow, and they come away red. He looks down at his hand. His palm shines in the dull daylight, slick with blood and ragged where the cut has reopened. He mutters a swear. When did that happen? He didn’t even notice. The woman fishes a first aid kit out of the back of the jeep and motions for him to come over. He plods over and sits down on the wheel well as she wipes blood off his face and hand. Next she reaches in the kit and pulls out a rotund brown bottle. He braces for the sting of the peroxide as she turns his palm over and splashes the chemical onto his skin.

But it doesn’t come.

“You sure that’s the right bottle?” he asks.

“Hm?”

“The peroxide.”

“Yeah, why?”

He looks down at the cut. The blood fizzes and runs, dripping onto the ground in gently frothing puddles, but he feels nothing. No sting. Not the slightest burn. His fingers tremble. The woman turns back to the kit to get out the gauze, and when she turns back, Hei is pressing his thumb directly into the wound.

“Hei, stop! What the hell are you doing?!”

He feels the warmth of his blood and the smoothness of his skin as his wet fingers glide across it. He feels the pressure of his thumb and the way the muscles in his hand shift. Warmth. Smoothness. Pressure. Nothing else.

No pain.

Numbness. Void.

He stands. The woman is saying something else, but his ears are ringing and he can’t hear her over the rush of blood in his ears. He draws a knife from his belt - she’s screaming at him now - and digs the edge of the blade into his arm.

It’s like watching himself through a camera, or cutting through a marble statue. He bore the weight of hundreds of everyday horrors, buried his guilt and anger, compressed it down until it became a weapon, the fragments sharp enough to carve through other human beings without a second thought. He thought one day he’d be able to pull those shards free from his heart, but now he’s looking at shrapnel buried deep in every muscle, and he can’t even feel it. He can’t reach through the numbness to ground himself in the one thing that never failed to make him feel human, raw and painfully human, the one thing that he knew would always be there as more of his old life - his old _self_ \- was taken from him. Blood runs down his arm and soaks into the dirt.

And he laughs.


End file.
